SUPERCEDED-NEWER VERSION AVAILABLE---M63 - the Sunflower Galaxy in Canes Venatici

SUPERCEDED-NEWER VERSION AVAILABLE---M63 - the Sunflower Galaxy in Canes Venatici

M63 is a beautiful spiral galaxy with amazing details in the spiral arms. M63 is part of a group of galaxies dominated by M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy. For a real treat, zoom on the enlarged image to see dozens of small, faint galaxies, particularly to the south and east of the galaxy.

In this image, North is Up. This image is cropped to 76% of the original full frame.

Exposure Details

Lens

Celestron C-8 SCT with Lumicon telecompressor

Focal Length

1100mm

Focal Ratio

f/5.5

Mount

Schaefer GEM - 7 1/2

Guiding

Unguided

Camera

Canon 20Da

Exposure

434 subexposures of 45 seconds each at ISO 1600 - total of almost 5 1/2 Hours

This is my longest exposure to date. M63 is such a beautiful galaxy, I'm glad I invested the time in it. I'll want to reimage this target once I have all my equipment issues resolved, as I think there's a whole lot more potential. I may reprocess this one, as I think I can improve on this now that I have a little better understanding of image processing.